09/03/2006 In Event Log by andy
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Ok, so first off, I want to say that this was one hell of a good trip. It was packed full of practice and play, and there wasn’t a lot of down-time to spend digesting all that was going on. My memory of certain events may be slightly inaccurate, but I want to give you the gist of this year’s meet. A lot of good things went down, and a lot of good things will come from having more of this kind of event in the future.
Of course, there is always a good bit of the “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” feeling on a trip like this, but even while censoring portions of the debauchery, I hope this report may convince more people to take an interest in international Taido-related events, or at least think about attending the next Asia Pacific Games.
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13/03/2006 In Event Log by andy
March 2006
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Last weekend, I was in Australia for the second Asia Pacific Games. This past weekend, I joined the Yokohama team at the second annual Kanagawa friendship meet. As planned, it was a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed getting the chance to play with people we aren’t able to meet so often. This year’s event was a little larger than the first one, but everything still ran very smoothly. Here are my impressions:
Background
The tournament is called the Kanagawa Prefectural Taido Association Friendship Meet. The name is both telling and misleading. Telling because it isn’t about winning medals but rather having fun together and deepening our friendships with other dojo. Misleading because the participants are not all members of Kanagawa Taido - they are members of dojo historically connected to Kanagawa Taido. It’s a tournament for our circle of friends, for the purpose of deepening that friendship. Kind of cool, if you ask me.
March 2006
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Last weekend, I was in Australia for the second Asia Pacific Games. This past weekend, I joined the Yokohama team at the second annual Kanagawa friendship meet. As planned, it was a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed getting the chance to play with people we aren’t able to meet so often. This year’s event was a little larger than the first one, but everything still ran very smoothly. Here are my impressions:
Background
The tournament is called the Kanagawa Prefectural Taido Association Friendship Meet. The name is both telling and misleading. Telling because it isn’t about winning medals but rather having fun together and deepening our friendships with other dojo. Misleading because the participants are not all members of Kanagawa Taido - they are members of dojo historically connected to Kanagawa Taido. It’s a tournament for our circle of friends, for the purpose of deepening that friendship. Kind of cool, if you ask me.
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14/03/2006 In Practice / Training by andy
fact: taido uses lots of jumps. if you want to be able to take full advantage of taido’s unshin, tengi, and ungi, you will need to have plenty of jumping skill at your disposal. this article is about building these skills.
before i get into my recommendations for improving your jump, i want to make a brief disclaimer (which has nothing to do with the general disclaimers for this site as a whole): my jump isn’t all that great. don’t get me wrong - it’s not bad either. i can jump over most mid-level kicks and do high back flips. i can launch into the air and spend a moment observing before i decide whether i’d like to spin, kick, or something else. my jump is respectable; it’s just not great.
fact: taido uses lots of jumps. if you want to be able to take full advantage of taido’s unshin, tengi, and ungi, you will need to have plenty of jumping skill at your disposal. this article is about building these skills.
before i get into my recommendations for improving your jump, i want to make a brief disclaimer (which has nothing to do with the general disclaimers for this site as a whole): my jump isn’t all that great. don’t get me wrong - it’s not bad either. i can jump over most mid-level kicks and do high back flips. i can launch into the air and spend a moment observing before i decide whether i’d like to spin, kick, or something else. my jump is respectable; it’s just not great.
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14/03/2006 In Experiments / Ideas, Knowledge Base, Practice / Training by andy
i recently spent five days talking and training with two of members of the hanshikai, and let me tell you this much - they are crazy excited about unshin. everything we practiced came back to a very select number of themes, and the possibilities of moving in full 3-space was one of them. i’ve had this article on the back burner for a few weeks now, but after talking to shima sensei, i feel i am ready to complete it. i plan to present some unique interpretations which may be completely wrong, but they will be interesting, and that’s more important than being right all the time.
note: you may notice that this article follows a similar format to my article on unsoku. this is because they were both originally part of one very long document. however, unshin and unsoku are very different animals so don’t think you can skip over parts just because the wording is similar.
i recently spent five days talking and training with two of members of the hanshikai, and let me tell you this much - they are crazy excited about unshin. everything we practiced came back to a very select number of themes, and the possibilities of moving in full 3-space was one of them. i’ve had this article on the back burner for a few weeks now, but after talking to shima sensei, i feel i am ready to complete it. i plan to present some unique interpretations which may be completely wrong, but they will be interesting, and that’s more important than being right all the time.
note: you may notice that this article follows a similar format to my article on unsoku. this is because they were both originally part of one very long document. however, unshin and unsoku are very different animals so don’t think you can skip over parts just because the wording is similar.
Continue Reading...
16/03/2006 In Experiments / Ideas, Practice / Training by andy
I love coffee. Always have, as far back as I can remember actually knowing what coffee tastes like. So when I was looking for a job during a “break” from school, it was only natural that I should apply at Starbucks. I did and was hired. Actually, I worked at Starbucks several times, as well as a few other coffee shops, but this story takes place at the Starbucks store at the perimeter pointe shopping center in north atlanta.
The last time I did a stint at Starbucks was the second half of 2001, and the manager of our store was a woman named Sherri. She was nice-ish, but the two of us had major problems getting along. Though we both had good intentions, we seemed to go about everything in totally different ways. Of course, my way was infinitely superior in every possible manner of judging.
I love coffee. Always have, as far back as I can remember actually knowing what coffee tastes like. So when I was looking for a job during a “break” from school, it was only natural that I should apply at Starbucks. I did and was hired. Actually, I worked at Starbucks several times, as well as a few other coffee shops, but this story takes place at the Starbucks store at the perimeter pointe shopping center in north atlanta.
The last time I did a stint at Starbucks was the second half of 2001, and the manager of our store was a woman named Sherri. She was nice-ish, but the two of us had major problems getting along. Though we both had good intentions, we seemed to go about everything in totally different ways. Of course, my way was infinitely superior in every possible manner of judging.
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16/03/2006 In People by andy
I am not a violent person. Despite my skill at making others want to hit me, it has always been more my style to ignore insults and walk away from physical confrontations. My quick wit has been a tremendous advantage to me in talking my way out of potential trouble. However a few years ago, I found myself preparing to be (painfully) thrown out of a pub by some very large men who worked there. These men were smart enough to see that, if they did not intervene with what was happening in our corner of the bar, someone would have ended up hospitalized.
Luckily, no punches had to be thrown. The “other party” (oddly, a friend of one of my mentors) apologized, and we all went on drinking and having a good time. As the evening continued, it was obvious that he could tell I would not have hesitated to fight him had he not spoken up when he did. And I wouldn’t have: he had been trying to make an ass of Bryan sparks.
I am not a violent person. Despite my skill at making others want to hit me, it has always been more my style to ignore insults and walk away from physical confrontations. My quick wit has been a tremendous advantage to me in talking my way out of potential trouble. However a few years ago, I found myself preparing to be (painfully) thrown out of a pub by some very large men who worked there. These men were smart enough to see that, if they did not intervene with what was happening in our corner of the bar, someone would have ended up hospitalized.
Luckily, no punches had to be thrown. The “other party” (oddly, a friend of one of my mentors) apologized, and we all went on drinking and having a good time. As the evening continued, it was obvious that he could tell I would not have hesitated to fight him had he not spoken up when he did. And I wouldn’t have: he had been trying to make an ass of Bryan sparks.
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26/03/2006 In Learning / Teaching, Practice / Training by andy
i recently wrote an article about how to use kobo as a method of gradually building our capacities for dealing with the psycho-physiological stress of combat. i didn’t go into detail in that article on specific practices, because i mainly wanted to get the concepts across that 1) incremental progression is indeed important, and that 2) kobo is a great opportunity to implement incremental progression in practice. in this article, i will demonstrate the second point with examples of incremental drill progressions for jissen.
i recently wrote an article about how to use kobo as a method of gradually building our capacities for dealing with the psycho-physiological stress of combat. i didn’t go into detail in that article on specific practices, because i mainly wanted to get the concepts across that 1) incremental progression is indeed important, and that 2) kobo is a great opportunity to implement incremental progression in practice. in this article, i will demonstrate the second point with examples of incremental drill progressions for jissen.
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27/03/2006 In Taido/Blog by andy
i have broken a finger.
i am typing this with one hand. i hate typing with one hand.
though i plan to do some behind-the-scenes work on the way this site operates, further development of the taido/blog project in the form of new content is on hold until i can type at a reasonable speed again. in the meantime, feel free to comment on what is currently online.
Permanent link to this post (69 words + 3 images, estimated 17 seconds reading time)
i have broken a finger.
i am typing this with one hand. i hate typing with one hand.
though i plan to do some behind-the-scenes work on the way this site operates, further development of the taido/blog project in the form of new content is on hold until i can type at a reasonable speed again. in the meantime, feel free to comment on what is currently online.
Permanent link to this post (69 words + 3 images, estimated 17 seconds reading time)
Continue Reading...
